Just to refresh everyone, because under a Biden White House things change rapidly and I know wer’re hit constantly with the ‘next big crisis’. Liberals tried to cancel Joe Rogan’s podcast on Spotify after he became an advocate for alternative COVID-19 treatments and against mandates.
It was a huge uproar with mildly relevant celebs threatening (then not) to pull their music from the streaming service. Well, guess what?
“Despite the backlash, Spotify saw its paid memberships increase, and the platform now has 182 million premium subscribers — up from 180 million in the previous quarter and 15% higher year over year,” CNN reported. “Total revenue was up 24% over last year.”
The company noted that had it not pulled out of Russia following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine that it would have done even better in terms of growth.
“Excluding the impact of our exit from Russia, subscriber growth exceeded expectations,” the company said.
They didn’t even scratch Rogan, if anything they helped build up his already enormous following:
“It’s interesting, but my subscriptions went up massively. That’s what’s crazy,” Rogan said earlier this month. “During the height of it all, I gained two million subscribers.”
At the start of 2022, Spotify doubled down in support of Rogan who regularly interviews fringe and far right figures on his show. That included Dr. Robert Malone, who claims to have invented the mRNA technology used to create COVID-19 vaccines, a claim widely refuted by the people who actually did. Malone’s episode prompted a complaint from 270 healthcare professionals asking for Spotify to do more to combat vaccine misinformation, according to Engaget.
That was followed by artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, who withdrew their music from the service, and Brené Brown who paused her podcast, in protest.
Just to clarify, Spotify pulled the hell out of Russia and still killed it thanks in no small part, to Rogans growing popularity. Spotify was Russia’s second-biggest music streaming service so we’re not talking peanuts.
Please check on your liberal friends. They’re probably drowning in their tender little tears.